


look for me in rainbows.

by librastrai



Category: RWBY
Genre: Canon Rewrite, Character Study, Gen, Grief, Lost Love, Minor Character Death, POV Minor Character, RWBY: Before the Dawn, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, fuck shun, not btd sun wukong friendly, rip iris/castor ship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-26
Updated: 2021-01-26
Packaged: 2021-03-18 18:47:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,997
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28996953
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/librastrai/pseuds/librastrai
Summary: It feels like they’re judging us. The students here.Oh, they absolutely were. News of the Fall of Beacon had been halted with the ruin of the CCT but Shade had still made their minds up when the battered and bruised of the fallen Academy had come to their doors, seeking shelter. Comfort. Safety.Nothing here was safe. Iris didn’t think she’d feel safe ever again.*An introspective of Iris Marilla from Before The Dawn, during the group therapy scene.
Relationships: Iris Marilla & Arslan Altan, Iris Marilla & Bolin Hori, Iris Marilla/Castor
Kudos: 5





	look for me in rainbows.

**Author's Note:**

> ohmygod, let it be known i hate this book & shun (that is not my boy) but i have a new dottir. she's very authentically traumatized so of course she has to be made fun of for it because fuck traumatized people i guess. this is also a little bit of a vent fic.
> 
> anyways #adoptirismarilla2021 #fuckshun2021
> 
> the title is from a poem!

“Iris! You coming?”

Bolin’s voice ringing out in the corridor, the tall, dark haired boy stood at the door to her dorm; Iris found herself pulled from the dazed stupor that seemed to make up most of her days lately. She didn’t …  _ do _ things, just merely floated along from one thing to the next. A small shake of her head to brush away the foggy haze that clung to her, dreads decorated with a few silver clasps bounced around as she nodded.

When Bolin lingered, an edge of concern in his honey gold gaze, Iris felt like she was crumbling apart as she forced a placative smile to her face. “I won’t be a minute. Just putting things away, promise.”

Seemingly assured enough, the boy’s hand held onto the oakwood door frame a moment more before he turned and made his way down the hallway, running a little to catch up with Arslan.

A shuddering breath; Iris let her head fall as a full body shiver rolled down her body. Her palms felt clammy, her stomach twisted and rolled, she felt like she was about to vomit. The help group for the survivors of the — of the  _ Fall _ … it had sounded like such a good idea when Velvet proposed it, lips pulled into a wide smile and her eyes shiny bright. It had almost seemed criminal to even attempt to turn her down.

_ I should’ve said no. I can’t do this. _

The slam of a door further down the corridor made the young adult jump, threateningly close to painting the rough tawny brown rug on the floor with her breakfast.  _ No. No you have to get it together, c’mon. _ Magenta eyes drifted, hazy, until they focused on a rainbow shine, the multicoloured metal ring on her finger always soothing.

_ “I know it’s not something super great, I just .. I saw it n’ it made me think of you, y’know?.” _

_ “Cas, I love it.” _

A “token” to start off their year with some good luck, he’d said. Running her fingers over the worn metal, finding miniscule comfort beating in her chest from familiar coloured shine, the way it still feels  _ right _ on her finger; Iris exhaled softly. Trying to ignore the shakiness as it trailed off, fingers idly twisted the ring.

She could do this.

* * *

The group was … nice. It was nice, familiar faces of those at Beacon scattered around the large circular table in the middle of the common room. Iris lets her hands glide over the cherrywood and remarks the initials marked into the lacquer.

_ It feels like they’re judging us. The students here. _

Oh, they absolutely were. News of the Fall of Beacon had been halted with the ruin of the CCT but Shade had still made their minds up when the battered and bruised of the fallen Academy had come to their doors, seeking shelter. Comfort. Safety.

Nothing here was safe. Iris didn’t think she’d feel safe ever again.

“It feels like a punishment.”

The worlds spilled out in a boldness the girl felt she didn’t possess anymore. Once she’d been bright and vibrant, floating as if on cloud nine. Ready to take on the world. Now she felt like the slightest breeze would make her fall apart.

A pang of guilt burns in her stomach at the winces she sees roll across the other student’s faces, shrinking back into her chair. Fingers twisted her ring but it brought minimal comfort. She shouldn’t have spoken. She never knew the right thing to say, not anymore.

But Velvet’s eyes, the  _ kindness _ there that seems so bereft in the native students to the Academy, prompt more, more of her words spilling from her mouth like petals.

“I … I feel like I deserve it. Because I survived and they didn’t.”

_ Pollux didn’t. Jason didn’t.  _ **_Castor didn’t._ ** **  
** _ Why me? It wasn’t fair— _

Bodies shift aside her and her gaze goes hazy, beginning of tears stinging in the corners of tired eyes when she sees the steady gold of Bolin’s eyes one side, Arslan’s hand nudging just a little closer to hers on the table. Vacuo could think what they wanted of Vale’s students, but they were  _ wrong. _

Almost as if she sensed the wave threatening to break in the girl opposite her, Velvet nodded softly. There’s a murmured hum in response to a question the rabbit faunus asks that Iris can’t remember — everything so hazy, wandering through a fog with hands outstretched, grasping for purchase wherever she can — but still she nods and reaches up to wipe the unspilled tears away.

“It would’ve been Castor’s birthday yesterday.”

The necklace feels like a ten ton weight against her chest, comforting and choking all at the same time. She took it off once, right after the Fall. Seeing it, seeing her heart broken and in half pieces on her chest so openly, a cruel mockery of a gift; it had nearly broken her that night. Arslan had come rushing into her room from the other side of the apartment they were emergency housed in to find the usually bright, airy girl bent over double. Tears streaming hot down her sallow cheeks, mournful sobs spilling from her with almost no end in sight, not one that she could see. For months after … Iris couldn’t see any light from the other side. Everything was dark and choking and foggy and cloying, it followed her to her dreams where she would see sparkling green eyes and a dazzling smile. Hands entwined with hers, thumb rubbing against her.

Arslan had held her every night for a week straight, Bolin lingering in the doorway to keep others away.

_ I’m sorry. _

_ I miss him too. _

A small beat of resentment — she hates, hates that she’s become so brittle, let herself be dragged underwater in moments like this — Iris can’t stop it thrumming in her fingertips for a moment. They  _ miss him? _ They didn’t  _ know _ Castor. None of them did, not like her, not like her team; they were all  _ gone _ .

They didn’t know that Castor picked her first on Initiation Day and Pollux pouted for a week, teasing in the way she declared she was going to demand Ozpin put her on a team away from the traitor. Or that Castor had only rolled his eyes and flicked peas at her. Or that Jason had complained because those were his peas.

They didn’t know that Castor got her the rainbow ring for their initiation, or that the half heart locket was for her 16th; her parents had been out of town and he’d stayed with her the entire night. They’d spent the hours away lounging on the couch, watching old timey movies until they fell asleep in each other’s arms.

_ They didn’t sit and wonder how they were going to survive without him. _

The ache seemed to  _ burn _ in her chest. She couldn’t do this. Her entire body itches with an uncomfortable heat, seeming to prickle along dark skin, the flush crawling down her neck and into her chest, it feels so  _ tight _ . Breathing quickens a little, just enough for Arslan to catch note. One fine, blonde brow raised and Iris pressed her lips together, a short shake of her head. Her fingers seemed to freeze on her ring. She didn’t catch what Nolan said, which only made the pit in her stomach feel  _ worse _ . They all heard her … her whining, she couldn’t listen to them?

“You have something to contribute, Sun?”

Magenta eyes rose at that, still swimming, still hazy, unfocused. The world felt like it was drifting away beneath her fingertips,  _ barely _ tethered with how she was sandwiched between Bolin and Arslan. She didn’t know if that made it better or worse. Trying to think felt like trying to catch wisps of cotton candy between her fingertips. They were faint, disappearing before she could gather them fully.

“Okay, for one, Theo wouldn’t like this.”

A laugh threatened to spill from her lips.  _ Theo wouldn’t like this? _ Why did he care about that? Why did any of them, Shade and it’s students had made it  **_perfectly clear_ ** that the  _ failures _ of Beacon were not welcome there.

Her breathing quickened. The prickling heat along her skin had started to burn.

“Beacon was your home, but it belongs to the Grimm now.”

_Beacon._ Crumbling stone and the horrid screeching of monsters, the screams of students as they ran for cover, or fought until they couldn’t fight anymore. Castor,  _ oh her sweet Castor _ , he’d been helping a trapped student get free of the brick pinning her leg when a roar echoed and her world fell apart.

_ "Don’t worry! Irey’s got my back!" _

_ I didn’t. I didn’t, oh Gods, Castor I’m sorry _ —

“I think that’s enough.” Arslan’s voice rang out, echoey and far away, but it was firm and kind. Kinder than he deserved, a bitter part of her thought. The blonde girl rose from her seat with a hand coming to rest on the bare skin of Iris’ shoulder, the smaller girl flinching. She didn’t even realize she was floating from the wood of the seat until Bolin attempted to pull her back down. She flinched away from his touch too.

It burned, everything felt so  _ wrong. _ She felt  _ wrong. _

“You think Vacuans don’t understand what we’ve been through?”

The crack of her chair falling back against the floor was impacted further with her palms coming to smack against the tabletop. Teary eyes narrowed, pearly whites bared; Iris was fully trembling. Floating from the floor, only a few inches but everything in her periphery began to float too, Bolin scrambling to catch himself.

“ _ They don’t understand! _ ” Sun’s mouth fell open, Iris cutting him off before he could try and refute her. “You don’t understand! They still have their home, they have Vacuo. You have your team, but we — we don’t have  _ anything _ . We’ve all lost someone, I — !”

_ I lost Castor. I lost him and I’ll never get him back. I … I lost  _ **_me._ **

The students aside them were shocked into silence, some looking aside uncomfortably, some fixated on the pair with eyes wide like dinner plates. Iris felt a raw pang of guilt mix with her still flickering anger, her grief. “Your team lost their leader and you didn’t even have the excuse of being  _ dead _ .”

Nolan flinched at that. Scarlet’s face betrayed nothing, but a muscle in his jaw twitched. Sun, for the little credit he deserved after taking up their grief and dashing it like petals, at least had the decency to look ashamed for what his words had done.

Iris didn’t care.

Chairs, books, even the table itself clattered to the floor when the trembling girl turned on her heel and stormed out of the common room. It wasn’t until she was back in the “safety” of her dorm that she could even begin to acknowledge the red hot trickle of tears down her face. It felt like they would never stop.

The door shut behind her, Iris could do nothing but just stand there for a moment. Her gaze focused on nothing, her body shook violently. All the adrenaline of that moment had quickly crashed and given way to an  _ emptiness _ that felt all consuming. Emptiness and then an overwhelming wave of pain and anger and so much guilt. She barely made it to the single bed before curling up in her grief. Sobs wracked her, time became a distant thing. It didn’t matter anymore.

The sound of the door opening was barely noticed, but the sensation of two bodies wrapping around her — soft silk of Bolin’s sash against her cheek and the scent of Arslan’s perfume catching her — it offered something. A buoy for a girl drowning. They said nothing as her sobs gave way to shuddering breaths and whimpers, crying for a boy dead, a ghost she couldn’t say goodbye to. Only the soft murmuring of Arslan humming a long lost lullaby and Bolin’s hands running over her hair answered her grief.


End file.
